Chandigarh, January 13
Directions on free registration of cases by the IGP notwithstanding, the Chandigarh Police continues to mislead complainants to avoid registering cases in cognizable offences, apparently to keep the crime rate low.

The police refused to register a case on a complaint by an eye surgeon for one reason or the other regarding the theft of his bag containing medical equipment over Rs 80,000 by two cheats.

The tricksters, both minor boys, distracted the complainant’s driver by knocking at his car window and when he came out, one of them reportedly decamped with the bag.

The modus operandi is peculiar to a gang of children who were active in the city a year ago. The gang was never busted. Dr Jawahar Luthra who works with Chandigarh Medical Centre, Sector 17, at 10.30 am yesterday went to the Advance Eye Centre at the PGI. His driver dropped him outside the building and went to park the vehicle. As the driver was locking the car, a boy aged 10 knocked at the car window . He stopped the boy from doing so, but the latter refused to budge.

At this the driver came out to shoo away the boy.The boy fled and the driver returned only to find the bag in the car missing. The bag contained expensive medical equipment, including a retinoscope, worth over Rs 80,000.

Dr Luthra went to the PGI police post to lodge a complaint where the officer on duty told him that they would register a case only on being told them who the miscreants were. The policeman recorded a daily diary report (DDR). He told him that the DDR could be converted into an FIR later.

When asked, the SHO of the Sector 11 police station, Inspector Ramesh Chand Sharma, said he was not aware of the matter. In October last, a purse of Manju Wadwalker, PRO at the PGI, was stolen from her car in Sector 15. The police then too had lodged a DDR, not a case.

Sources said a member of the gang was caught in 2006 red-handed. He hailed from Orissa. The police arrested the gang members but they were released after six months.

Chandigarh, January 13
K. Prabagaran of Sri Lanka will defend his title while India start favourites in the team event in the LG All-India Amateur Golf Championship which gets under way on the par-72 greens of the Chandigarh Golf Club on Monday.

Over 100 golfers from nine countries, including India, are in the fray in the 107th edition of one of the world's national opens, marketed by Tiger Sports.

The host team clinched the team event in the last event played at Coimbatore last year. The line-up of the Indian team for the event is the top runner in the LG Indian Amaterur Golf Tour Abhishek Jha, three-time winner in the current season Manav Das of Ambala, third-ranked Gagan Verma and three-time Sri Lankan Open Amateur winner Simarjeet Singh.

The hosts face the toughest challenge from Sri Lanka and Chinese Taipei. Sri Lanka have in their ranks the individual defending champion K. Prabagaran and LG Eastern India winner Mithun Pereira. Chi-Hsien Hsieh and Tao Huang will lead the Chinese Taipei challenge. The other teams in the fray are Nepal, Malaysia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Iran and Singapore.

Wg Cdr Satish Aparajit, secretary-general of the Indian Golf Union, said while all other teams had arrived for the mega event, the Pakistani golfers were expected by late this evening.

Mr Vivek Attray, director, Tourism, Chandigarh, said the event would give a big boost to Chandigarh Tourism. He added that the administration was tying up with the golf club to offer a package to tourists to make Chandigarh a golf tourist destination.

The captain of the course, Sukhjeet Singh Lehal, said the club had managed to provide a good course despite the harsh winter conditions. He also talked about the club's latest water feature on the 18th hole and the white sand in the bunkers.

The tournament will be played on a twin-format. Marketed by Tiger Sports, the event opens with a two-day stroke play championship which will act as qualifying round. The top 64 players emerging from the qualifying round will be seeded thus and will then battle it out in the match-play format with the 36-hole final slated for January 20.The stroke-play championship will also decide the Team Championship. Incidentally, India are the defending champions.

"I would like to stress the growing popularity of the LG

Indian Amateur Tour which has been regularly attracting international players even during the other legs. I am also excited by the new crop of juniors like Rahul Bakshi, Rashid Khan and Amanjyot Singh who will join the amateur ranks in the coming seasons. I am sure that the Tour will be as competitive as the professional circuit and would rate one amongst the best in the world,” said Wg Cdr Satish Aparajit, secretary-general Indian Golf Union.

Despite the harsh winter, the par-72 Chandigarh Golf Club is primed for the mega event. It is one of the country’s longest and toughest courses.

The hazards in the shape of trees and bunkers demand accuracy. With the kind of field gathered, it will surely be an action-packed week that no Chandigarh golfing buff can afford to miss!

Chandigarh, January 13
Strange but true. Even as the Chandigarh administration is spending lakhs on constructing 23,000 dwelling units for slum dwellers after acquiring more land, it seems helpless in saving such land from the prying eyes of grabbers.

Construction activity is on at Charan Singh Colony, Mauli Jagran, and the task force on encroachments seems to have failed to take notice of it.

For the past few days, construction activity is going on in a plot lying vacant for the last several years. At least 100 plots are lying vacant in Charan Singh Colony and the administration has failed to take note of the same.

The administration, perhaps, has failed to learn from previous incidents. In 2001, a case of fraudulent allotment of plots in the colony (on the basis of fake slips issued by a tehsildar) is still pending. At least 10 persons were arrested by the Vigilance Department then.

The modus operandi followed by the accused was to get the plot allotted on fake estate office slips in fictitious names. A person was produced under a fictitious name and the plot allotted to him. Several persons, including EO officials were under the scanner for selling government land to unsuspecting plot seekers.

Last year, the EO had got a case registered against some persons for raising construction on a vacant plot. In the past three years, 15 such houses and shops had come up on government land.

“When the colony was carved out in 1990, chunks of land had been kept between clusters of houses. After the Vigilance inquiry, the EO did not take any step to protect the area,” said Shambu Banerjee, a resident of the area.

Chandigarh, January 13
Nineteen- year-old Neha Chhabra, daughter of mayor Pardeep Chhabra, was seriously injured when a recklessly driven motorcycle knocked her down outside her residence in Sector 22 here this morning.

She is BDS student in a private college. According to information, Neha was walking down the road outside her residence when a speeding motorcyclist collided with her at 11.30 am. She fell unconscious.

She was rushed to the Sector 16 Government Multi-Speciality Hospital and admitted to the intensive care unit.

It is learnt that the handle bar of the motorcycle injured her lever. She has sustained multiple injuries.

Pardeep Chhabra told TNS that Neha regained consciousness late in the evening and was now out of danger. The SHO of the Sector 17 said he had no information about the incident and would look into the matter.

Residents up in arms against GMADA
Shops being operated from residencesChitleen Sethi
Tribune News Service

Mohali, January 13
Despite special drive launched by the Greater Mohali Area Development Authority some months ago to force closure of shops running from residential areas, residents of the township have little respite. Neighbours living next to houses where the owners have allowed shops to run from garages are up in arms against the authority stating that there is no response from the authorities.

A resident of Sector 70 who had written to the chief administrator of the GMADA almost two months ago explained about the problems he is facing. He reported that his neighbour had given his car garage on rent to a person who ran a kiryana store. “The shop had become a nuisance for me and my family. The vehicle carrying milk comes around 4 am each morning and throw crates of milk and blows horns. This wakes up my children up,” said the resident.

He said, “There is always a group of people standing below my flat smoking and making all types of noises. Children cannot even study. The junior engineer of the area has come and seen the problem but it seems that he is being bribed by the shop owner,” he said.

He added that he had registered the complaint many times on the online facility provided by GMADA but no action has been taken.

Another resident of Phase 9 had sent a complaint to the chief administrator regarding his neighbour using his back yard as a go down to store merchandise. “My neighbour is a tea merchant and has constructed a big go down at the back yard to store his merchandise. Every alternate week the product is brought in a truck and tonnes of tea is off-loaded and stored in the house. This is done on a Sunday after 6pm,” said the resident.

He added that he had complained about all this earlier also but no action was taken.

Panchkula, January 13
Haryana Urban Development Authority (HUDA) has decided to give a personal hearing to the representative of cooperative group housing societies regarding its November 7 notification on implementation of provisions of Haryana Apartment Act 1983. With this, an opportunity has been afforded to the petitioner at 11 am in the conference hall of HUDA complex in Sector 6 here tomorrow.

The Punjab and Haryana High Court had earlier disposed a petition filed by the Forum for Common Cause Society through its president Deepak Rai Walia, and directed the Haryana government and HUDA to decide on their representation within two months.

The petition had sought directions to authorities against notices issued to members of societies according to which they were asked to execute and register a declaration deed of their flats under Haryana Apartment Ownership Act, 1983. Failing this, FIR’s were to be registered and civic facilities like water and sewerage connections were to be disconnected.

Meanwhile, HUDA chief administrator T C Gupta said the petitioner has been asked to bring a list containing names of 35 group housing societies, who are members, with names and full addresses of their presidents and secretaries at the time of hearing. The petitioner has also been asked to inform how many members out of the original have been transferred by the respective societies and how much fees is being charged by each society for allowing transfer of membership. Further, member societies have been asked to furnish details of whether they have obtained partial occupation certificates or occupation certificates along with respective dates of obtaining the same.

Gupta further said any other cooperative society can represent itself at the hearing through its office bearers, along with the said details

Chandigarh, January 13
The Citizens’ Association, Sector 21, celebrated Lohri here this evening. Union minister of state for finance Pawan Kumar Bansal and mayor Pardeep Chhabra announced Rs 3 lakh each for the execution of development works in the sector.

President of the association P.C. Sanghi listed out various demands, including lights for two big parks in Sector 21-B and C, three garden huts in parks and development of small park along with construction of small portion of road and lights behind Sector 21-C market.

Sanghi said demand to shift the fish and meat market to newly developed AC meat market in Sector 41 was long pending. Also, effective vigilance was needed to ensure that unauthorised auto mechanics did not carry repair work in the sector.

Chandigarh, January 13
Manpreet Khaira of Chandigarh has done it again. Based in Portland, Oregon, in the USA, this IIT gold medallist’s company, Avnera, has launched an array of products based on its proprietary wireless technology that delivers uncompressed CD-quality music, with no perceptible interference.

Anyone who knows Khaira probably is not surprised that he and his team have pulled off a series of engineering feats resulting in high-quality audio for affordable priced wireless products such as headphones, rear speakers for home theatre systems, and a phone for making Internet calls.

Avnera will make a higher and better version of the blue tooth technology available at a much cheaper and affordable price, promising better quality CD music. The new technology, which was on display at an international show at Vegas in the USA, is considered an advanced version of the blue tooth technology, as it transmits uncompressed music in 48 kHz/16-bit PCM form with “no audible or perceived interference,” claims Manpreet Khaira.

The technology already appears in three products, including wireless headphones, and the number will grow to 15 items during the first quarter of the next year.

The CEO of the three-year-old company contends that its 2.4 GHz solution is less expensive, easier to set up, more interference-resistant and better sounding than rival 2.4 GHz technologies (blue tooth), thus tackling factors that plague other wireless systems.

Avnera has combined several radio, signal processing, voltage regulation and other functions onto a single chip. That means manufacturers need not buy seven different chips to provide all the functions needed for wireless audio.

Khaira got the idea for Avnera after he sold Mobilian to Intel. With more time on his hands, Khaira had the leisure to notice that there was no convenient way for him to listen to music stored on an MP3 player over his home stereo system. Nor could he listen to music he’d downloaded to his computer, or make long distance calls over the Internet, without sitting close to his computer.

“Every solution I came up with I needed a new piece of silicon,” said Khaira. “That’s cool for me, because that’s what I do.”

Khaira and his fellow founders, Chris O’Conor and Raj Garg, decided that rather than trying to tinker with technology designed for moving data wirelessly from one location to another, they would rather start from the ground up, because audio technology was so different.

Now that their first two chips were in production, the team was working on the next generation of chips to enable many new wireless audio products, Khaira said.

Chandigarh, January 13
Ruskin Bond is back in black and white. Only this time he looks more like the man he is, and this on purpose.

“I wanted to restore Bond to academia. Till now, he has been more popular with those in their light green years,” says Som Ranchan, a poet-writer, who has for the first time psychoanalysed Bond in the light of his life, struggles and works.

In doing so, he has relied on western psychological approaches of Jung, Campbell, Alder and Freud; spiritual perspectives of Otto Rank, Rudolfe and Vedanta, and philosophical notions of Schopenhauer.

For a start, the concepts sound loaded; not quite apt for application to a man as simple and brook-like as Bond. To his readers, Bond still remains the old rustic writer - one who can imbue with life all that’s morbid in existence.

“Bond is not the kind of writer written about in academic seminars. The loss is entirely of the academic community. In this book titled “Bonding with Bond”, I have analysed Bond and brought out concepts of relatedness in his works. I have used Jungian formulations on anima and self to see how Bond relates to animals. His relational spread is cosmic,” says Ranchan, initiated into the book six months ago when a scholar friend came to him, seeking help for research on Bond. That’s when Ranchan realised Bond had hardly been written about.

“We have Bond’s life narrative by Ganesh Saili and another book by Prabhat Kumar which divides Bond’s works in terms of oeuvre. But Bond has never been written about in true sense of the word. In fact, he has suffered due to lack of media packaging. He came alive only with the arrival of Penguin,” Ranchan says, referring to times when his daughter Renee introduced him to Bond’s writings.

No wonder the book, published by Graphit India, is dedicated to his daughter. It was released today at Chandigarh Press Club by former general manager of The Tribune S.D. Bhambri.

Also present were former bureau chief of The Tribune Gobind Thukral, Jaspal Singh and O.P. Verma, former principal, Government College Nalagarh.

Personally, Bond seems to like his “psychological dissection” as long as it serves a creative purpose. In the foreword to the book, he mentions: “Ruskin Bond psychoanalysed is a rather daunting concept for Bond, the story-teller, to assimilate. I have never thought of myself in terms of Jungian formulations…To be put under the microscope makes me feel a bit like a …worm.

However, as Churchill said in a different context, “We are all worms, but I like to think of myself as a glow-worm. Ranchan in his study does look for the glow-worm, the creative persona, in his subject Ruskin Bond and rightly points out that the man and writer are one, inextricably intertwined…”

For his part, Ranchan projects the academic study of Bond as a simple reader’s response. “It’s not serious; it will interest anyone,” he insists, admitting that inspiration for the work came from journals on Bond titled “Scenes from a Writer’s Life” and “Landour Days”. He, however, agrees that the book will expose the readers to seminal ideas of psychology and spirituality. For researchers, the book for sure is a treat.

For lovers of literature, it’s yet another insight into the ever-expanding world of Ruskin Bond, who showed us how to love man, beast and ghost alike.

Chandigarh, January 13
Over 30 students from various colleges of the city expressed their views on ‘Unavoidability of Commercialisation of Education’ at UBS yesterday. The debate was organised to mark Swami Vivekananda’s birth anniversary that is celebrated as Youth Day. Swami Brahmeshananda, secretary, Ramakrishna Mission, Chandigarh, was the chief guest. Prof A.C. Julka chaired the session while Prof Ronki Ram, Prof D.V. Rai and Prof Pankaj Malvia were the judges. Prof Rekha Jhanji was the guest of honour.

The debaters, who spoke for the commercialisation of education, argued that commercialisation was now inevitable if we wished to spread quality education among the youth. The cost of setting up institutions and laboratories was just too high for any government to bear. When people could spend on consumer goods and other luxuries, they might as well pay for education. Those speaking against the motion decried full-fledged commercialisation of education. Merit was no longer the criterion; money was enough to enter a modern professional institution, they argued.

In the end, Swami Brahmeshananda highlighted Swami Vivekananda’s ideas on education and their relevance in the present times. Vasuda Atreya and Avantika from Government College for Girls, Sector 11, won the first and second prizes, respectively, and Gurjot Singh of Government College, Sector 11, stood third. The winners’ trophy was awarded to the team from Government College for Girls, Sector 11.

Chandigarh, January 13
Students of the psychology department of Panjab University celebrated Lohri in a special way. They visited the children of ‘Samarth’, an institution for children with autism, cerebral palsy, mental retardation and multiple disabilities.

Fun activities such as painting, games, dancing and singing were organised. Samarth president Pooja presented an enlightening skit on special children. She also extended warm wishes to the students of the department. The special kids were also given gifts as a token of love. Popcorns, rewaris, peanuts and snacks were distributed.

Chandigarh, January 13
Yesterday when the gathering at Parvasi Punjabi Divas celebrations was discussing “deficiencies in education system”, a management professor from California turned around the debate. “As you talk of deficiencies in education system and consequential unemployment, technology around the world is changing,” he said, drawing from years of research on what it takes to be successful and happy in the 21st century.

Technical information, said Satinder Dhiman, associate dean of business, Woodbury University, is predicted to double every 72 hours in 2010. “How much pace can you keep? By the time your student enters the second year of college, the world around him would have changed. He will require indispensable skill sets to succeed in life,” said Dhiman, saying that the top 10 in-demand jobs in 2010 will be the ones that did not exist in 2004. Research by US department of labour further shows that today’s learner will have 10-18 jobs by the time he is 38 years-old.

That’s what’s called multi-tasking, said Dhiman, listing another interesting finding of worldwide research on the skills required to succeed these days. “In 1976, problem solving was the second most important skill on the scale of 10. It has now slipped to number 12. Teamwork, which was on number 10 in 1976 is now the top skill needed for success. Interpersonal skills are on number 3 where they were on number 13 decades ago. Times have changed,” said Dhiman.

His enlistment of five top minds for the future, based on the best-selling book “Five minds for the future” published by Harvard Business School Press, was even more interesting. These minds have been categorised as “disciplinary, synthesising, creative, respectful and ethical”. “Only the honest will stay on the top. The meaning of real success will also change. It already has. It’s no longer about being moneyed, famous and powerful. It’s about making meaning with life,” Dhiman said, referring to Warren Buffet, who was happy leaving his fortune to Bill Gates on the promise that the latter will use it for charity.

Dhiman then cited the WHO research that by 2020, depression will be the second leading cause of disability in the world.

There has been a tremendous rise in the cases of suicides among youth. All those who commit suicides have weak minds and hearts. Obstacles are a part of everyone’s life, but to die is not a solution. Real courage lies in facing the obstacles head on.

The youth should not waste this precious gift of God. They should think about their parents and loved ones before taking such an extreme step.

Chandigarh, January 13
Thieves decamped with gold and silver jewellery from a house in Charan Singh Colony, Manimajra, here. Ram Sanjivan of Charan Singh Colony reported to the police alleging that 69 grams of gold, 700 grams of silver and Rs 5,000 was stolen from his residence on Saturday. A case has been registered.

Vehicle stolen

Ram Kumar of Sector 7 lodged a complaint with the police alleging that his Bajaj Pulsar motorcycle (CH-03-N-2687) was stolen from Sector 22 on Saturday. In another incident, Parbhat Singh of Sector 20 filed a complaint with the police alleging that his TVS Star motorcycle (CH-03-Y-2008) was stolen from his residence on January 8.Two separate cases of thefts have been registered.

Hit-and-run case

A scooterist Ram Phal of Sector 20-C was hurt after being hit by a car (CH-03-Y-4216) on road dividing sectors 19 and 27 on Friday. The car driver sped away after the mishap. A case of causing hurt due to rash and negligent driving has been registered against an unidentified car driver.